


curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears (gentle into that good night)

by CaptainKaysno



Series: let there be a garden and a man in it [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst, Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, no beta we die like tubbo during like every festival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28762863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKaysno/pseuds/CaptainKaysno
Summary: “I think that there really was something special about it, ya know?” Phil says, sad and melancholic, “The way that we all built it from the ground up. The way that we managed to keep Dream from stepping all over us, but I think that - I think that eras passed us by.”“Phil?” Wilbur calls out, struggling to keep his eyes open. “What are you doing?”A beat of silence.A whispered, “Wilbur?”
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Series: let there be a garden and a man in it [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125860
Comments: 17
Kudos: 120





	curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears (gentle into that good night)

**Author's Note:**

> A huge shout - out to tack-tick.tumblr.com! She came up with the idea and I got so inspired that I wrote this is in like two hours. The post that I got the inspiration from can be found here at https://dreamsmp-au-ideas.tumblr.com/post/640328665159335936/came-up-with-another-swap-au-that-im-not-gonna-do. 
> 
> dreamsmp-au-ideas is also a great tumblr that you should follow for that amazing au content!
> 
> Title taken from the poem Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas

Wilbur’s lost count of how many portals that he’s moved through at this point. The endless voids of stars and the sickening purple swirls that he’d raced through all blurring together as he moves through world after world. 

It’s been two weeks since he’d received the letter from Technoblade that had prompted the mad dash. He’s read it so often that he can recite it by memory, can see where Techno’s always steady hand had smeared ink. 

_‘Dad’s not doing too well. Things aren’t going the way that we had planned. It might help us out if you could by. The sooner would be better._

_\- Technoblade.’_

Most people wouldn’t find that alarming, some would even scoff at the way that Wilbur - a relatively soft musician in a family of warriors - is rushing to help the mighty and untouchable Technoblade. 

There are only three people in the world who could read the warning signs, the red flags, the imminent danger in his brother’s words. It’s the reason that Wilbur had received the letter instead of the several more powerful people that Technoblade knows. 

As soon as he’d gotten it he’d called on every single connection that he has, pulled on old favors, tracked down any kind of help that he could find. At every turn there was helpless shrugs and advice to not go anywhere near that server. Blocked from the common every man in a way that it hadn’t been at the beginning. 

He places the ender eyes and does his best to focus on the sketches that Niki had sent him. The bare outlines of a podium, the white house in it’s half - glory (Tubbo and Phil) and it’s half - disatrous (Quackity) state. The flag that he’d designed.

His breath catches as his feet find air. He thinks of his father’s glorious iridescent black wings, Tommy’s barking laughter, Techno’s deadpan jokes. The smell of freshly baked bread.

The end swirls around him, stars twisting around him at a breakneck speed. 

Phil’s voice starts to echo all around him a moment later.

“I think that there really was something special about it, ya know?” Phil says, sad and melancholic, “The way that we all built it from the ground up. The way that we managed to keep Dream from stepping all over us, but I think that - I think that eras passed us by.”

“Phil?” Wilbur calls out, struggling to keep his eyes open. “What are you doing?”

A beat of silence.

A whispered, “Wilbur?”

“No, it’s one of your other sons. Yes, it’s me.” Wilbur says, the stars finally slow down until they’re merely turning around him. “I’ve been looking for you guys for so long. It’s a bitch of a thing to get on a server without being whitelisted.”

“Wilbur, mate, you really should go home.” Phil says. It takes far too long before Wilbur realizes that he’s crying. “There’s not really much to be done here.”

Oh gods, Wilbur doesn’t think that he’s ever once heard Phil cry. 

“Where are you?” Wilbur calls. He doesn’t know if the stars are actually closing in on him or if it’s a trick of the void. He doesn’t much care when he has a crying father to try to talk too, “Dad, where are you? Where are the others?”

“We’re in L’manberg,” Phil says, catching on the word. “You wouldn’t know exactly where I am. I - Wilbur. I think that it’d be best that you stay out of the Dream SMP for right now. You can try again in a day or two -”

Wilbur’s feet finally meet stone, but much more importantly his eyes are fixated on the black feathers of his father’s wings. The feathers are all in disarray in a way that Phil would never let happen. Wilbur isn’t naive enough to think the dark red smeared against the back is anything other than blood. 

The room that they’re in doesn’t look like anything that’s been described to him. There are words carved into the wall shadowed so Wilbur can’t make out more than a few words. His hands start shaking when he realizes that they’re the semi - joking lyrics that Wilbur had sent to him, months ago now, after they’d won the war. Wilbur had insisted that they’d need a national anthem. 

“How’d you get in?” Phil asks. 

“I - I hacked my way in,” Wilbur says, taking a careful step forward. He has to duck so he doesn’t hit the top of the ceiling. “Phil, what the fuck is going on?”

“Stay back!” Phil snaps, whirling around as the sound echoes in the small space. The instinct to obey that voice has Wilbur taking two steps back. Phil swallows, a few tears trailing down his cheeks, he attempts a horrible facsimile of a smile. “Wilbur, we won.”

“You don’t seem very happy about that?”

“Scott - Scott’s dead, Wilbur.”

Wilbur’s heart drops into his stomach. He has to grab at the edge of a wall to keep himself steady as the words slam into him like a blow. “What?” he whispers, “But I thought you were going to take him in peacefully?”

“He didn’t want that,” Phil says, tragedy written into the deep-set wrinkles of his forehead and in the bags under his eyes. “He made sure that we wouldn’t be able to take him in.”

Wilbur forces himself to focus on Phil. He has too because otherwise the grief would overwhelm him. He still doesn’t know how his vibrant, extroverted, and fun - loving uncle had turned into the cold tyrant that he’d been told about. 

Instead he focuses on the way that Phil looks like he might turn into dust at any moment. His bucket hat is wrinkled and sags against his forehead, his shoulders curved and his wings hunched defensively around him. He looks old in a way that Wilbur’s never seen him look. 

He hasn’t moved away from the wall. He’s so obviously hiding something from view.

“Phil,” Wilbur’s voice is shaking despite his best effort. “Phil, what’s this room suppose to be about?”

Phil takes a deep fortifying breath. His back straightens, his wings go lax against the floor even as they twitch with energy. 

“Phil?” 

“Do you remember Eret?” Phil asks. 

Oh, Wilbur remembers Eret. The deep wounds that they’d left on his already untrusting father and brother had Wilbur and Tommy sending scathing letters for weeks afterwards. He remembers the half - upset, half - amused way Phil had written about the rainbow - themed castle. He remembers laughing so hard that he’d cried when Tommy told him about the crusade that he and Technoblade were undertaking of stealing every single flamingo that Eret had dared put up. 

“I remember Eret,” Wilbur says, “I don’t know what he has to do with this. Phil, please, let’s just go and find our boys -”

His communicator beeps. Several rockets go off. 

_TommyInnit was slain by Dream using_ [Nightmare]

 _Dream went off with a bang due to a firework fired from_ [Rocket Launcher] _by Technoblade_

Wilbur stares down at the communicator in horror. He glances up desperate to see the same horror echoed in Phil’s face. 

Phil doesn’t even look down, instead just staring at him with tears trickling down his cheeks. He’s moved so he’s no longer hiding the back wall. His hand is hovering over a stone button. 

“Did I never tell what Eret told us? Before he betrayed us all?” Wilbur shakes his head. Phil smiles a very sad smile, “It was never meant to be.”

A click of a button, the hiss of TNT igniting, the hard impact of Phil slamming into him, the sound of wings fanning out and feathers puffing out into a protective layer. 

It all happens so quickly that Wilbur doesn’t have anytime to process it before the sound of utter devastation hits him. The sound of buildings crumbling into dust, the sound of screams, and rockets.

The beeps emitting from their communicators are coming every second.

“Oh my gods,” Wilbur cries out, coughing and spitting when dirt ends up in his mouth. He can’t open his eyes against the dirt and dust that must be lining his face. “Phil!”

Gentle hands wipe at his eyes until he can finally open them again. Phil is staring down at him, the previous grief and tenseness replaced with worry.

“Are you hurt?” Phil demands. 

“Oh my gods,” Wilbur whispers as he stares at bloody stumps where wings once were. “Dad. _Dad, your wings_.”

“Are you hurt?” Phil demands again. The worry replaced with a steely resolve. 

Wilbur shakes his head. His hearing hasn’t even been damaged despite how close they both were.

Phil stumbles to his feet, leans his shoulder against a half - broken wall. Wilbur stays laid out against the wall and stares out at the utter devastation of what he assumes had once been a nation. Now there is only rocks and collapsed buildings, people standing the edge of a crater.

He can’t recognize any of them from this distance.

“Wilbur,” Phil says, drawing his attention to him. His tone has gone utterly casual as if he hadn’t just blown up his own nation. “Have you been practicing with a sword like we’ve told you?”

“Y - yes?” 

Phil pulls a netherite sword from it’s sheath. He doesn’t look quite right without his wings but even more than that, there’s something gone from behind his eyes. He holds the sword out to Wilbur, “I need you to kill me, Wil.”

“No!” Wilbur says, pulls himself up onto shaking legs. “Phil. Phil, we need to go find our boys. We need to make sure that Tubbo and Niki are alright. I’m not -”

The handle gets pressed into his shaking palm. Phil continues to look completely blank, “Do it, Wilbur.”

“No! Phil. Dad, listen to me. This is nothing. This can be rebuilt in a few weeks. We can salvage what we need to -”

The words catch in his throat as Phil meets his eyes. He takes the handle back out of Wilbur’s limp hand. 

“Alright,” he finally says, a hand reaching up to cup Wilbur’s cheek for a moment before falling away. “Alright, Wilbur.”

Wilbur nearly collapses again from the relief, “Thank you. You were scaring me -”

Phil drives the sword through his own stomach. Stumbles backwards with the force. 

Wilbur screams. He doesn’t think that he makes any words but if he did then he wouldn’t be able to hear them over the blood pounding in his ears. 

“I’m sorry, Wilbur.” Phil mouths, “I’m sorry.”

He stumbles back another step. 

It takes him right off the ledge and into the new crater. It’s a free fall that that a mere minute ago he could’ve flown away from. Now, he’s utterly helpless against the gravity pulling him down. Wilbur lunges towards the edge, his hands hanging uselessly where his father had once stood.

He isn’t quick enough. 

His father eyes never leave his face.

_Philza hit the ground too hard while trying to escape Philza_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you like it please leave a comment and a kudos! They really do mean the world to me.
> 
> If you'd like to come and talk about the dream smp or leave a prompt then I'm at sleepy-bois-incorporated.tumblr.com!


End file.
